O.B.I.T.

"In this room, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, security personnel at the defense department Cyprus Hill's Research Center keep constant watch on its scientists through O.B.I.T., a mysterious electronic device whose very existence was carefully kept from the public at large. And so it would have remained but for the facts you are about to witness…"

[edit] Plot

While inquiring into the disappearance of an administrator at a government research facility, a Senator is confronted with paranoia, secrecy, and intimidation. He ultimately learns the cause; an unusual security device that is used to monitor its employees. The Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (known by the acronym O.B.I.T.)^[1] is so pervasive that no one can escape its prying eye, at any time or in any place. After the missing administrator is found alive and reveals his knowledge of O.B.I.T., its sinister unearthly origins and purpose become apparent.

[edit] Quotes

Lomax: People with nothing to hide have nothing to fear from O.B.I.T.

Oroville: {scoffs) Are you that perfect, Mr. Lomax?

Lomax: The machines are everywhere! Oh you'll find them all, you're a zealous people. And you'll make a great show of smashing a few of them. But for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built. And they will demoralize you, break your spirits, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them! Oh, you're a savage, despairing planet; and when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired. Senator, enjoy the few years left you. There is no answer. You're all of the same dark persuasion! You demand – insist on knowing every private thought and hunger of everyone: your families, your neighbors, everyone — but yourselves.

[edit] Closing narration

"Agents of the justice department are rounding up the machines now. But these machines, these inventions of another planet have been cunningly conceived to prey on our most mortal weakness. In the last analysis dear friends, whether O.B.I.T. lives up to its name or not will depend on you."